Hey! I've been more or less vegan for around seven years and just started casually lifting weights a few months ago (after years of pretty casual but regular exercise with activities like yoga, swimming, cycling, trekking). I'm a pretty slim build, male, around 182cm and have usually been 65kilo's, but I've gained about 5ks in the last few months with weight training.

I've just started the stronglifts program, but have decided to mix it up a bit, doing workout A (Mondays), workout B (Wednesdays), then a higher rep/lower weight workout on Fridays. Maybe it's misguided, but the reason I'm not staying strictly on stronglifts is that I'm not really in it to get really bulky, I'd prefer to stay slender but add some size and, my main goal, functional strength.

My diet includes a lot of bread, legumes, nuts, rice, pasta, and veggies. I'll try to post what I'm eating now and then, but am not nearly organised enough to keep track of everything (I live in a collective and generally share cooking, so I don't always know exactly what I'm eating or how much of it). Any advice or comments you want to throw my way would be really appreciated

Right on... Yeah tracking my food has been really helpful. I have a form I made and try to fill in all my meals when I can. Really helpful when I began. It may seem like a pain, but it is big plus when you need to look back. congrats on the stronglifts program.

TrilliumFortnight wrote:I've just started the stronglifts program, but have decided to mix it up a bit, doing workout A (Mondays), workout B (Wednesdays), then a higher rep/lower weight workout on Fridays. Maybe it's misguided, but the reason I'm not staying strictly on stronglifts is that I'm not really in it to get really bulky, I'd prefer to stay slender but add some size and, my main goal, functional strength.

I think you are indeed slightly misguided . The shape of a muscle can not be influenced by training, it can only grow bigger or smaller. If your goal is strength going too high on the reps makes little sense, but if you with higher reps mean around 10-12 it is no problem. More than that will mainly build endurance I think.

I think next week I'm going to try dropping the weight on my "free" workout and getting up to 15 reps on most of the exercises. Maybe its better to try to squeeze the lighter workout on Wednesday, between the stronglifts, so that I have longer to recover (over the weekend) after the heavier workout. Does that make sense?

Also, I'm feeling a little stiffness in my shoulders sometime doing lateral raises, something I should watch. As usual have been eating a lot of veggies, pasta, bread (home made with sunflower seeds, linseed), muesli, and smoothies made with chocolate oat milk, oats, linseed, and sometimes some frozen berries.

Workout (Fri 04/03/11)40 minutes 12kg kettlebell: Swings, snatches, side snatches, squats, lunges, sots press etc. This was really tough, destroyed all my pretensions of fitness. Decided to add more kettlebell workouts as they feel great and are good cardio work. Trying to save up for a 16kg kettlebell.

I'm feeling a bit disappointed that I'm not really progressing with chin ups/pull ups, they are always such a struggle and I don't seem to be able to push out a few more. Some of the 5x5 exercises are getting tough, I failed the last couple of overhead presses and had to drop the weight. Barbell rows are feeling better after getting advice in the bodybuilding/strength training forum.

I'm constantly failing at the overhead press, can't seem to make any progress with it. Everything else is feeling pretty good, bench press is starting to feel pretty heavy, I'm only just getting the last few reps out. I'm not SO pleased with my progress, since I was lifting about the same weight before I started stronglifts, and getting more reps out. The only thing I'm happy with my progress on since starting are the squats, but I never did those with weight before so it's a bit of a gimmie.

Glad to see you're back! ...and that you've still been hitting it hard! As for struggles with gains, check two things: food and form. Make sure you are lifting with proper form/technique and make sure you're hitting the FOOD real hard before and after lifting (In other words, pretty much all the time) to make sure you have the "go juice" in your muscles to crank out the effort and the nutrients to heal the muscles after. Can't over estimate the importance of the food. I find that if I don't get enough carbs, my muscles fatigue in the middle of sets and the W/O session gets really hard. Just some "food" for thought... If all that's taken care of then, just stay patient and consistent!

Trillium, a general rule of thumb for protein is whatever your weight (in pounds) is, multiply by 1-1.5 to get the number of grams of protein for the day and divide that over the 6 meals - you might be a bit lite in this area. Also, the meal after the workout should be a much as 25% of the total calories for the day. A HUGE meal. I think the salad may be a bit light for the first meal after lifting. Especially doing SL5x5 - squatting 3x/week. Think LOTS of calories from carbs (post W/O only). For me, I find this to be pretty much the only time I'll eat a lot of rice or other grain, and/or potatoes. Ultimately, it depends on what your goals are though. Also, not sure how this would affect or is affected by your living in a collective...that obviously needs to be taken in to consideration. ...more "food" for thought. Hope it helps!